Ephron & Witherspoon Team Up for Peggy Lee Biopic

Variety reports this morning that Love, Loss and What I Wore scribe Nora Ephron is teaming up with Reese Witherspoon, Marc Platt and Fox 2000 to bring a Peggy Lee biopic to the big screen.  Ephron will be writing and directing the film, and it is expected that Witherspoon will star.  The project is largely Witherspoon's brainchild (she secured the rights to the story from Lee's granddaughter, Holly Foster-Wells) and the details of her performance contract are currently in the works.

This will mark a continued collaboration for Platt and Witherspoon, who have previously teamed up on the Legally Blonde franchise.  Platt additionally produced Wicked on Broadway. Fox 2000 was the home of Witherspoon's Walk the Line.

The bopic will tell the life story of Peggy Lee, a American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer and actress in a career spanning nearly seven decades. From her beginnings as a vocalist on local radio, to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, Lee wrote music for films, acted, and created conceptual record albums-encompassing poetry, jazz, chamber pop, art songs, and other genres. Her hit albums include Fever and Is That All There Is? Lee additionally wrote songs for and voiced four characters in Disney's Lady in the Tramp. She is best known on screen for her roles in The Jazz Singer and Pete Kelly's Blues.

In addition to Love, Loss and What I Wore, now running off-Broadway, Ephron is best known for writing and directing the big screen hit Julia & Julia starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.  Reese Witherspoon earned an Academy Award for her performance in Walk the Line and has additionally starred in the hit films Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2, Cruel Intentions, Sweet Home Alabama, and Election, among dozens of others.